


Bad Habits

by orphan_account



Category: Lego Ninjago
Genre: Chubby Cole, Cole has Eating Issues, Human Disaster Jay Walker, Jay Wants to Get High, Jay has a Sweet Tooth, Jay is a Cake Thief, M/M, Past Suicidal Thoughts, Unspecified Setting, but there’s no specific place in the timeline, it takes place on the Bounty, make cole chubby you cowards !!!, this whole thing was just really self-indulgent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2020-01-13 10:06:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18466762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Cole goes for a devil’s hour snack and finds that there’s a reason Jay has such dark eye bags.





	Bad Habits

 

It wasn't surprising to anyone that Cole had a bit of an overeating problem.

 

He had a big appetite and too often found himself cowering before his stomach's demands. He knew he had done it to himself since the day he decided to rebel against his father's strict, dancer-ready diet at age nine. Lou was in the wrong putting that kind of pressure on a kid who just wanted a slice of cake on his birthday, but Cole went too far. He always did.

 

When his mother died, it got worse. He filled his stomach in an attempt to fill the hole in his heart, and he punished himself by climbing a mountain with his bare, scarring hands after every binge. He was always disgusted with himself, and it took all of the little self-control that he had to refuse throwing himself off of the dumbfounding height. Cole wasn't a quitter.

 

His lack of self-control was probably one of his biggest weaknesses.

 

It was deep night when Cole got out of bed- probably about three hours until dawn, when the ninja were expected to awake and start their day. But Lord, was he hungry. The black ninja knew that night eating wasn't healthy, and he had gotten better at exhibiting control over his nightly cravings. However, there was no way that he'd be able to fall back asleep when he could hear his stomach.

 

He snuck out of the five male ninja's bedroom and down the hall, creeping through the shadows. He was tall, built, and pretty chubby, but he had never let his size stop him from being graceful or stealthy.

 

The bounty seemed surreal at night. In the day, it was always squirming with life from his colleague's typical antics and banter, but in the night, there was but a peep as the flying ship was either anchored down or driving on auto-pilot- a feature courtesy of the tech-savvy duo, Nya and Jay, as well as Zane's connected programming.

 

Cole could already taste the rich, chocolatey flavor of the cake he had saved at dinner. Wu and Misako purchased a treat for each of the six ninja at a nearby confectionary shoppe, and they just so happened to sell a two-layered, quadruple-chocolate cake that was just to the Master of Earth's liking. He only had a single slice that evening, seeing as Zane had prepared a lot of food for the actual dinner course, but one piece was enough to make him crave it through the night.

 

As he approached the kitchen, he could hear a faint, techno-esque noise in the background. He paid it no mind, however, and focused on retrieving the rest of his cake. The man swiftly opened the door of their refrigerator, pulling out the chocolate monstrosity, and tore through the plastic wrap with his surprisingly neat and trim nails, which were covered with chipping black polish from the day before.

 

His mouth watered, but his throat went dry as soon as he noticed how much of the top layer was missing.

 

Something wasn't right here.

 

He only had a slice, yet almost half of the top layer was gone. He watched Zane cut it himself. There were supposed to be eight slices per layer.

 

Someone stole his cake.

 

The background noise continued. Cole was too pissed off to care, and he brushed it off as one of his friends forgetting to turn off the console after they finished gaming.

 

Who would steal his cake? It couldn't have been Zane; he would've let Cole know. Kai's too obsessed with his lean figure to stray from his diet. It could've been Lloyd or Nya, but they were already full from their own sweets, and Misako wasn't the type to steal.

 

So it was either Sensei Wu, who does this kind of thing to test patience or whatever other virtue, or Jay, who's just Jay. He acts without thinking, and he has a sweet tooth.

 

Either of them could've done it.

 

Cole growled, running his index finger across the top of the cake and sucking the gorgeous chocolate frosting off of it.

 

"YES!"

 

The black ninja perked up, raising a brow. Who would be up at this hour screaming? Jay, probably, or Kai.

 

"YES, YES, YES! OH GUAVA, YES!"

 

Nope. Definitely Jay.

 

Cole picked up the dish of half-wrapped cake and silently made his way to the den, which had been appropriately dubbed "The Jayming Room" by the very man who spent 95% of his free time gaming in it. Of course, as Cole had suspected, the auburn-headed ninja was seated in front of their TV set, eyes glued to the screen, fingers effortlessly hopping from button to button on his controller.

 

"Jay, it's late."

 

The blue ninja whipped his head around, curls bouncing with the sudden movement. There was just enough light in the dimly lit room for Cole to see the blush on Jay's freckled cheeks and the chocolate mark around his lip. He stammered, "C-Cole! Heyyy, how ya doin', bud?"

 

"Let's cut to the chase, Jay Walker. You stole my cake."

 

"Uhh... yes, that is a correct statement."

 

"You dumbass, why did you steal my fucking cake?" Black snarled.

 

Blue took a moment to pause his game before replying, "I was bored and thought it was an edible."

 

The taller teen scoffed, stifling back a chuckle. He wanted Jay to feel intimidated, so he wouldn't ever pull this shit again. "You do know Master Wu got it from the same place that he got your brownies from, right?"

 

"First of all, those weren't my brownies. They were Kai's," he objected. Cole rolled his eyes. "And yes. I do know that."

 

"So you thought that 1, a bakery would sell edibles, and 2, our sensei would buy me something that could get me high?"

 

"Okay, my logic may sound a lot worse out loud, but you looked tired and content with yourself after you ate some earlier."

 

"Maybe because I was full?"

 

"Well maybe that didn't come to mind since you need to eat, like, 4000 calories a day just to make up for what you burn? And maybe you usually eat a lot more than that anyway? Because you definitely don't stick to a diet where you burn as much as you eat?"

 

"You are so fucking passive-aggressive."

 

"Actually, there was nothing passive about that, you big, dumb kiwi," Jay huffed.

 

"What's with you and tropical fruit?"

 

"What's with you and cake?"

 

"Good point," the black ninja commented. He set the cake down by his blue counterpart. "Mind if I join you?"

 

"Knock yourself out."

 

Cole sat down beside his petit teammate, unwrapping the rest of the chocolatey goodness and just tearing a chunk right off. Jay snorted, adorable as always, Black thought to himself.

 

"It's 4 in the morning, I'm hanging with my bro, eating cake, watching him struggle to play his favorite games because of how tired he is," he snickered. "When'd you even go to sleep?"

 

"Oh, uh..."

 

"No, you did not do what I think you did."

 

"I can catch an hour of sleep before everyone else wakes up. I just gotta finish this game, first."

 

Cole snatched the controller from him, dangling it above his head. Jay was at a massive disadvantage in these sorts of situations, seeing as everyone else he worked with was at least four inches taller than him, wore heels on a regular basis, or Misako. The blue ninja stood at a measly five-foot-five, whereas the black towered over him at six feet. "Jay, you absolute fuckin' idiot! You know we have training in the morning-"

 

"So what? I stay up 'til at least two almost every night."

 

"Are you serious?"

 

Blue blushed a dusty shade of rose. "Yeah... I was never really great about getting enough sleep... I mean, even before I became a ninja. I've always stayed up too late. I just have too much on my mind to really fall asleep, so why not do some modeling or play some video games, y'know?" he chuckled sheepishly, "It's a bad habit, I know, and I've never really been able to shake it off."

 

"Huh." Cole somewhat expected this kind of thing from him. Jay gave into his brain's overactivity just as he himself gave into his appetite. He couldn't help but think they were the same picture, just with a different frame.

 

"Don't look at me like that! I know I'm dumb, alright?" he sighed. "But it's only gotten worse, what with the stress of ninja-ing and not getting much time during the day to do my own stuff. I kinda feel guilty about it, too, 'cause when Sensei asks us if we slept well, I have to lie since sometimes I only get into bed half an hour before he comes in to wake us up."

 

"Does anyone else know?"

 

"I mean, they all know that I'm a night owl, but only Zane knows how late I really stay up. You too, now, I guess. You're lucky everyone knows about your eating habits. More people can help you that way."

 

Cole sneered, "So why don't you tell anyone else? We all love the shit out of you, Jaybird." He elbowed the smaller male, who let out yet another classic snort and tucked some curls behind his flushed ear. "Seriously, we're all here to help you."

 

"Heh. Thanks," Jay mumbled. "I'll tell them tomorrow morning, but for now, I'm just gonna use you as a pillow. Sound good?"

 

"Knock yourself out," he mimicked.

 

Blue gave up trying to retrieve his controller and nuzzled into Black's torso. He buried his face into the larger teen's chest. Cole, still a little shocked at the affection, wrapped his free arm around the lightning ninja's smaller frame as he dozed off. Come to think of it, he had never really seen Jay sleep. He, along with the other ninja, saw him groan, eyes shut, and pull a pillow over his mop of hair almost every morning, all disheveled and whiny. But the shortest ninja was never the first to fall asleep, and he was technically awake the whole time that he complained about having to be awake.

 

He was always so lively- constantly bouncing between a stressed and an ecstatic mood like a pinball machine.

 

But when he was asleep, he was calm. His soft, tangled hair called out to Cole, urging him to run his large, callused man hands through it. Jay snored lightly, a nasaly type of sound. The black ninja wasn't surprised, as he snorted more often than he laughed when he was awake, but it was odd to hear the gentle noise emerge from the smaller teen.

 

For once, Cole had found a distraction from his tyrannous appetite.

 

Jay had somehow made it all better.


End file.
